External link numbers down year on year

[lollowe]

Hi,

Just wondering if anyone knows why a website that has definitely had some links acquired over the last year would now show less links and from fewer referring domains than they had this time last year? How is that possible - assume it is down to the way OSE / Moz crawl the web and collect data but need a definitive explanation for a client that has noticed the drop in link metrics and as a result authority.

Many thanks,

[David-Kley]

Have you tried more than one tool to verify they are indeed not showing up? Try a few other backlink watching tools, just to double check. Raven tools has a great link checker, as does Ahrefs.

Visit the actual page where your links were supposed to be placed, to see if they are still present, and inspect the link to verify it is "followed", and not a "no-follow"

Also, were the links that were acquired paid links? Could be that the linking site got hit with a penalty. This is all just speculation, based upon what you have said here. I would do a bit more research, to try and see if the links were truly removed, if they are followed, or if it's just not showing up in MOZ's link crawler.